Wet ‘n wild at the Island

May 15-16

Report by Chris Ralph. All pics Phil Wisewould

Eight historic touring cars took part in Round 3 of the Victorian State Race Series in mid May. Numbers were down after the big event at The Bend on the previous weekend with only two drivers, Pete Meuleman in the Nb Mustang and Andrew Lane in the Fastback, fronting up again to grab as much seat time as they could.

Sodden Saturday

Drivers must have thought they were back at The Bend in qualifying as the foul weather wound it up a notch, with the extra amusement of 20 Holden HQs to contend with in a combined grid. Michael Miceli’s Fastback Mustang took pole with Island expert Mark Brewster’s Torana in second, ahead of Trevor Talbot giving the ex-Angelo Taranto its first run.

Dom Leo was next in the ex-Stern Trans Am Mustang, ahead of Andys Lane and Clempson in Fastbacks, Meuleman, Stephen Pillekers’ Torana, Buggee’s invited Fiat 131 and Bill Trengrove in the Falcon Sprint.
Rain pelted down for Race One and Mark Brewster bolted from the front row to lead by a country mile, his huge grin disappearing as proceedings were red flagged by a HQ incident and declared a non-race. Drat!

Sort-of sunny Sunday

Well, at least it wasn’t raining for R2 and the Furious Fastbacks of Miceli and Clempson made a race of it, crossing the line in that order just .5 apart. Dom Leo was next, then the quartet of Lane, Talbot, Brewster and Trengrove ahead of Pillekers, Meuleman and Buggee. 

Having posted fasted lap Clempson was champing at the bit, and in the afternoon eight-lapper he made no mistake about it, swapping fastest laps with Miceli before clearing out to a 10+ second victory. Andy Lane, having led for the first three laps before succumbing to Miceli wasn’t far behind with a gap to Leo and Brewster less than a second apart, and Trengrove, Pillekers, Meuleman and Buggee closing the race off.

Historic touring cars now take a midyear rest (currently enforced by Covid-19 lockdown at the time of writing) before the big meeting at Winton Festival of Speed, when the 50 km JUST CARS Cup will be the feature race on a packed program. Rug up and roll up for that one!